The world values self-love, but in the Philippines, our culture still views those who indulge in self-love as silly and self-absorbed. Which was at odds with a younger generation, Gen Z, who were slowly embracing this practice.

We wanted to encourage more Filipinos to embrace self-love, and with McDonald’s being a go-to happy place of most youths, we found a way to make self-affirmation a rewarding experience using the McDonald’s App.

This was set against a challenging business goal to create an engaging campaign that will encourage app redemption and drive people to the store, to be measured by these KPIs:

- Double the app registrations vs. previous month

- Increased Unit Redemptions per Day (URD) vs. previous month.

- Grow average Daily Active User (DAU) by 10% vs. previous month.

- Increased in “Value for Money” brand attribute vs. previous month.

Culturally, Filipinos have always found it easier to be hospitable, supportive, and affirming to others more than themselves. Young Filipinos are conflicted. While they understand the value of self-love, local society pressures them to always put other people first and frowns upon this practice.

Offering affirmations and praises is acceptable when directed toward others. However, self-affirmation or self-praise is often discouraged and viewed as a form of self-indulgence or self-centeredness.

For the first time ever, McDonald’s turned their iconic “I’M LOVIN’ IT (LOVE KO ‘TO)” into “I’M LOVIN’ ME (LOVE KO ME)”, exclusively for McDonald’s App users.

We created the Philippines’ first self-love activated promo—I’M LOVIN’ ME DEALS. The mechanics are simple. 1) Open the app 2) Voice out a self-affirmation into the mic when prompted 3) Wait for the AI to break down and decipher the self-affirmation and 4) Receive special deals tailor-fit to the user’s moods.

The app also rejected negative expressions with a positive and encouraging message, asking them to try again.

The brand didn’t only make promos more engaging, but they also encouraged normalizing self-love and made it more rewarding.

The McDonald's App targets young Filipinos who value self-love, but are held back by societal norms of putting others first. To counter this, the brand aimed to normalize self-love by promoting “I'M LOVIN' ME” and turning it into a rewarding experience on mobile, via the McDonald’s App.

Mobile was the main platform for this campaign, seeing that Filipino youth are always on their phones, in search of validation from others. With this campaign, we encouraged them to receive validation from themselves via our self-love activated promo.

On March 1, 2023, the I’m Lovin’ Me Deals (Love Ko Me Deals) campaign was launched—the Philippines' first-ever self-love activated promo, available only on the McDonald's App.

Customers had to simply open their app, find the I’m Lovin’ Me page, then express words of affirmation to unlock special deals.

The campaign was amplified on-ground by turning simple posters into self-affirmation mirrors. Online, the brand released self-affirmation videos and posts. Influencers were also tapped to share self-affirmation routines to prove that self-love can be rewarding.

Every day, the app also conveyed self-affirmation messages, reminding customers to experience the rewards of expressing self-love, one affirmation at a time.

The I’m Lovin’ Me (Love Ko Me) campaign made redeeming deals in the McDonald’s app more rewarding, leading to a significant increase in downloads, average daily users, and social media impressions.

I’M LOVIN’ ME reached 18.4 million people and garnered 164 million+ impressions. Notably, 63% of comments expressed brand interest and appreciation for self-love.

From just March 1-10, the McDonald’s App garnered a 90% increase in downloads vs the previous month. Daily unit redemptions (URD) rose by 33%, and average daily active users (DAU) increased by 35% vs the prior month. Self-love activated deals led to 46,000 redemptions. Active users exceeded half a million, with an average of 55,000 users per day during the campaign. Additionally, the campaign boosted McDonald’s brand perception as a value-for-money option by +5.2 points vs the previous month.

But more importantly, we got more Filipinos open up to loving themselves a little bit more.